James K. Bishop

Biography

Jim Bishop received a B.Sc. (hon) in Physical and Inorganic Chemistry from the University of British Columbia and Sc.D. in Marine Chemistry from the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography. He held postdoctoral and research positions at Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Just before arriving at Berkeley Lab, he was a professor of Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria. He is a member of the faculty in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley where he teaches undergraduate courses on marine geochemistry and oceangraphy. To date, he has spent 79 weeks at sea during 29 oceanographic expeditions.
His research is centered on understanding ocean carbon system dynamics through a combination of novel in-situ sampling and remote sensing technologies.

Research Interests

Our main area of interest is the ocean's carbon cycle. As geochemists, we're interested in how carbon cycle processes influence the geochemical cycles of the 50 or so elements which exhibit nonconservative behavior in sea water (they don't follow variations of sodium). Most of these elements are transported vertically in the ocean associated with particles of biogenic and terrestrial origin.
As earth scientists, we're concerned with the consequences of rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. How will living systems respond to climate induced change in the ocean? How does the ocean naturally sequester carbon and how will this change in the future?
The research is multidisciplinary and requires knowledge of mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, computer science, and engineering.